Katherine Clark Will Succeed Ed Markey

The Democrat won a low-turnout special election.

Katherine Clark, Rod Clark

Associated Press

State Senator Katherine Clark easily won the special election to replace Senator Ed Markey in the U.S. House of Representatives, no surprise given how easy she made winning a Democratic primary look back in October.

Clark got 66 percent of the votes, the Boston Globe reports, beating the Republican nominee Frank J. Addivinola Jr. to represent the Massachusetts Fifth. Turnout was just 13 percent. Indeed, this was a race that was largely won at the primary level. There Clark navigated a much closer race with a crowded primary field of challengers. By contrast, the Republican party had pretty much given up on this race, The Globe notes, offering Addivinola no financial aid. Clark out-raised him 12 to 1.

 

So as our David Bernstein wrote when she de facto won the seat after the primary, “Clark … will now be rewarded with entry to the most awful place on earth: the United States House of Representatives. ” She’ll be the most junior member of a minority party of a deeply disliked legislative body whose approval currently sits in the high single digits. Congratulations to her!